Former Marketforce executives John Driscoll and Angela Nutton have jointly established a new media buying and consulting group, adding to changes in Perth’s advertising market.
Former Marketforce executives John Driscoll and Angela Nutton have jointly established a new media buying and consulting group, adding to changes in Perth’s advertising market.
Their new business is named Longreach Media and Marketing and has two divisions.
Ms Nutton, who ran Marketforce subsidiary OMD until July, will head Longreach Media.
She said it would offer the full complement of media services expected of a national buying consultancy.
Longreach has partnered with national agency PHD to gain access to nationally negotiated media rates, research data, and back-end systems.
Mr Driscoll will head Longreach Consulting, which will provide advice to boards and chief executives on their media and marketing effectiveness.
“Quite rightfully, boards are now wanting greater detail in relation to their media budgets, and whether or not they’re being spent in the best possible way,” Mr Driscoll said.
Mr Driscoll told Business News that Longreach Consulting would be a part-time role, held in conjunction with a portfolio of positions including non-executive director roles.
In contrast, Longreach Media plans to grow in line with the number and needs of its clients.
“Our approach, before even discussing tools and resources, is to build a dedicated team who take pride in their work and are recognised by clients as genuine business partners,” Ms Nutton said in a statement.
“With the increasing volatility and staff turnover in media departments, I believe offering clients a sense of stability, transparency and honesty is something that’s critically important.
“And with the proliferation of smaller independent agencies, there are now even greater opportunities for us to work together to provide more seamless solution for clients.”
Mr Driscoll and Ms Nutton worked together at Marketforce in the early 1990s before being reunited in 2014.
Mr Driscoll was with the group for nearly 30 years before leaving in 2017 for a short-lived stint as the Western Australian chief executive of Seven West Media.
Ms Nutton left OMD in July, about one month after the group lost its media buying contract with the WA government.
Curiously, the Marketforce website still promotes OMD as “the longest serving contractor to the government of WA”, even though it has lost that contract.
The media buying work is now held by Carat and Initiative – ironically, former Carat executive Adam Marshall now runs Marketforce in WA.
The other incumbent on the WA government contract was ASX-listed Adcorp Australia, which is restructuring to become what it calls a “newly branded, smaller yet profitable strategic marketing solutions business”.
Mr Driscoll and Ms Nutton are not the only senior people to have left Marketforce in recent years.
Creative heads Pat Lennox and Ben Green left in June to establish their own agency, Horse and Hound.
Mr Driscoll’s replacement Paul Everingham left in February after seven months in the role.
While Marketforce was for many years the largest agency in WA, that mantle is now held by The Brand Agency, according to the industry ranking on the BNiQ Search Engine.
The Brand Agency announced recently that general manager Nick Bayes has been appointed managing director WA, giving him broader responsibility for the group’s operations in this state.
Steve Harris continues as The Brand Agency’s chief executive, with overall responsibility for its national operations.